


A Winter Wish

by NaomiGnome



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, A little angst, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Like the tiniest of angst because of canonical parental situations involving their mothers, but this is truly mostly fluff with zero conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28444941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiGnome/pseuds/NaomiGnome
Summary: “They say that if you catch the first snowflakes during the first snow of the Winter, you can make a wish on it, and it will come true."
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 20
Kudos: 94
Collections: JB Festive Festival Exchange 2020





	A Winter Wish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sdwolfpup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/gifts).



> Happy winter season and holidays and all in-between. The wonderful and splendid Slips hosted this festive exchange and I drew SDWolfpup's name. It was both terrifying and exhilarating and her prompts were the softest things:
> 
> 1\. snowy winter mornings  
> 2\. The "ever after" part of "happy ever after" (i.e. happy established relationship)  
> 3\. Together by the fire (indoors or outdoors!)
> 
> I tried to get a little bit of everything, and I hope she really likes it cause if it weren't for her I wouldn't be so immersed in this corner of the fandom as I am now, and my year would've been significantly less good. Her work has been a bright spot in days and her friendship a highlight in my life. <3

“I hate the cold.” Jaime murmured into the nape of his mother’s neck. 

She chuckled warmly and simply readjusted her hold on him, carefully balancing him and Cersei on either of her hips, as she had been doing since the twins were born. 

“Oh, little lion, the cold will be worth it, I promise.” 

Jaime hummed in disbelief and chose instead to burrow deeper into his mother’s arms. Cersei on her other side had not stirred since Joanna had woken them up in the dead of night to bundle them in their thick jackets, claiming a special Winter adventure. 

Jaime honestly couldn’t see what was so special about Winter. Granted, this was his first and his second grade Septa told him the average person would go through thirteen or so in their lifetime, but for a season that only came every six years or so it wasn’t very good at making a good first impression. 

“Little lion, we’re here.” 

Jaime peered up from his mother’s neck to see in the dim light of a budding daybreak that they were at a local park. She let both he and Cersei down, his sister rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Jaime doing a quick assessment of his surroundings. In the distance, he could see two shadowy figures approaching.

Jaime tugged urgently on Joanna’s jacket, “Mommy!” The figures were coming closer. “Mommy!! Mom!! There are White Walkers coming to get us!!” 

The twins clutched at their mother’s leg in alarm as the shadowy figures came into view. As the moonlight brought their faces into sharpness, Jaime met the eyes of the smaller wight; their piercing blue eyes shining out in the darkness, brighter than any of the books read to him had described. 

This was it. His seven years of life had accumulated to this moment and he was going to be brave and protect his sister and his mom. “I won’t let you hurt my family!” Jaime cried out valiantly, moving forward. 

He tackled the smaller wight to the ground, and it made a beastly yell. Of course the beast wasn’t going to back down without a fight and it quickly turned him around and pushed his head into the cold ground. He pulled and kicked and punched, but the White Walker yelled and fought back with equal fervor. More hands entered the fray and before he realized, Jaime was being pulled away and his head was spinning. 

_”Jaime Lannister!”_ Jaime’s mother’s voice rang out into the night, “What in the Seven do you think you’re doing?” 

“Run Mom! Take Cersei and save yourselves! I’ll protect you from the White Walker!” 

“Who are you calling a White Walker?! At least I’m not going around attacking people like some crazy, mad king!” The wight yelled back in a small, low voice, “Calm down Aerys!” 

Jaime gasped in shock. _How dare that wight._

“Brienne!” 

“Jaime Lannister, they are not White Walkers.” Joanna said sternly pulling Jaime back into attention. “It’s Aelinor, my best friend. You remember her? She was at the Sevenmas party. And her daughter, Brienne, remember?” She pushed Jaime gently in their direction, “And you will apologize right now for tackling her.” 

Aelinor nudged her daughter toward him, “And you, young lady, are going to apologize to Jaime for punching him in the face.” 

Jaime grudgingly approached Brienne. She did look like a White Walker, he wanted to argue, she had super pale skin and super blonde hair (even blonder than his and Cersei’s) and super _super_ blue eyes. And she was taller than him! 

“Sorry.” he said, not sorry at all. 

“Sorry.” she replied, sounding also very not sorry at all. 

They turned to their mothers in equal turn, both matriarchs looking at their war-town children with wry smiles. 

“Mommy!” Cersei’s small voice called out, “I’m cold, and Jaime’s being dumb. Why are we here?”

Jaime was about to send back a biting remark at his ungrateful sister, when Joanna bent down and said with a soft smile, “We’re here for the first snow.” 

“First snow?” 

It was Aelinor’s turn now to squat slightly to meet the children’s eyes. “Yes, every Winter, you mother and I would come out whatever the time the weather maester would say would be our first snow. Because, do you know what they say?” 

Brienne’s eyes are big and blue, and her voice is hushed when she asks, “What do they say?”

“They say that if you catch the first snowflakes during the first snow of the Winter, you can make a wish on it, and it will come true.” Joanna finished serenely. 

All three children were enchanted, three sets of eyes pointed at the sky as the first snow began to drift from the sky.

“Momma,” Brienne said, “What will you wish for?” 

“A little sister or brother for you, little star.” 

Not to be one-upped, Jaime turned to his own mother, “And you, Mommy?”

Joanna smiled, “The same, Jaime.” 

Cersei butted in, “I’m going to wish for an elephant!” 

“What are you going to wish for?” Jaime whispered to Brienne, hoping for some sort of truce.

Brienne glanced slightly down and to the left to meet his eyes, meeting him halfway, “A sword.” 

Jaime’s eyes lit up, that was a great idea. He was also going to wish for a sword. He glanced upwards again. Maybe he would wish for a best friend. 

*****

Jaime cursed the weather maester for his terrible timing. Why was the first snow always somewhere between the darkest part of the evening and the first light of the day? The end of Summer had been terrible, blackened with a car accident that had cost him a hand and a mother. Worst off, Cersei and Tyrion were inconsolable, so he had to be strong. But how could he be strong if he was one hand short? It ached now, in the cold. 

He arrived at the park to see a familiar pale giant standing in the open, staring at the sky. 

“Brienne?” 

She didn’t look at him. He wished she would. The Summer had stolen her mother as well, her sisters, and her brother. Thirteen years was not old enough to shoulder that kind of grief, however broad those shoulders were.

“Hi Jaime,” Brienne murmured. 

Jaime stood on Brienne’s right side.

“What are you going to wish for?” Brienne murmured. 

Jaime said nothing. 

“I’m going to wish for my mom back, and my sisters, and my brother.” Brienne spoke it out into the air, puffs of her breath like hopeful little clouds in the dark. She turned to Jaime, her blue eyes large and glowing. “I’ll wish for your mom too, and your hand.”

Something in Jaime snapped. 

“That’s stupid.” Jaime started, feeling his voice rise and his face grow hot, “I’m the stupidest Lannister and you’re being even stupider than me. No first snow wish is going to bring them back. They’re _dead_.” He gasped shakily, “And _nothing_ is going to bring back my hand. I’m not a fucking starfish!” His chest heaved, and before he could get another word out, he felt himself enveloped by Brienne’s strong arms. 

His neck felt wet, and someone was sobbing. It seemed to echo in the night, and Jaime was overwhelmed, with Brienne’s gentle strength keeping him warm. 

“Then we wish to be okay, Jaime. We wish to live, okay?”

He doesn’t know who is crying or if it’s the snow that’s now falling fast, but Brienne is there, like a promise of Spring. He doesn’t need any wish for that. 

*****

“Jaime Lannister, if I fail because I missed the review, I will eviscerate you.” 

“Nonsense, it is one teensie-weensie test. You couldn’t fail unless you tried, and anyway, you can just use the first snow wish to wish for a good mark.”

“What a waste of a wish. You don’t need a wish if you have the power to make it happen yourself.” Brienne replied sternly, but the corners of her mouth were tipping up, and Jaime knew she would skip class to see first snow with him. 

“See? Brienne Tarth doesn’t need any wishes to pass some measly freshman year general education course. Why do they make us take gen ed anyway? Wasn’t that what high school was for?”

“You don’t need to keep pressing it, I’m already going with you.” 

They trudged in good humor to the closest park to the university, the air chilly and cold with the promise of snow. Brienne’s laughs came out in puffs of white, and Jaime yearned to jar the sound and keep it in his pockets for when he felt cold.  


When the powdered snow began to drift down around them, he watched her smile openly into the sky, in a way that she only ever did at him and at first snow. He watched some lucky snowflakes catch on the soft tendrils of her pale eyelashes, and kiss the flush of her cheeks. The warmth wrapped around his heart, much like the mitten she had knit him wrapped around the stub of his hand. 

“Jaime,” Brienne laughed, “Earth to Jaime? You’re missing it. You won’t be able to make your wish.” 

He only had one wish this year, eyeing the plush of her lips. 

“Jaime?” She faced him in concern at his uncharacteristic silence. 

_You don’t need a wish if you have the power to make it happen yourself._

Jaime reached out with his good hand and pushed up on his toes and pressed his lips to the snowflake that had graced her lips. 

*****  
“Last one to catch a snowflake doesn’t get their wish!” 

The two of them raced out into the cold, laughing with the enthusiasm of children, rather than the stoic winter appreciation socially appropriate for two adults in their late twenties.Jaime had years to master his technique, wrapping one arm around her waist and hold him as tightly to himself as his strength could muster and using his other arm and good hand to tickle her until she guffawed adorably. 

She pushed him away playfully, gasping for breath, “Jaime, Jaime, stop, the snow is already starting to come down.” 

She looked up gleefully in the sky as the powdered snow came down to meet her. One landed on the tip of her precious crooked nose, pale lashes fluttering closed, shining blue eyes giving way for the second most beautiful thing in the park. 

Brienne chuckled, “I got the first snowflake, Jaime, I guess the wish is mine this year.” 

From behind her, Jaime spoke, “First off, you know that’s not how the first snow wish works. And second of all, the snowflake can’t grant my wish this year, anyway.” 

Brienne turned around to tease him about being a sore loser, only to find Jaime down on one knee holding a black box in a slightly shaky hand. His eyes showed a brilliant green and his voice wet with emotion, “Only you can do that. Will you grant my wish Brienne?” 

*****

“We missed the first snowfall, Jaime.” She had arched enough so that she could see how the flurry came down, albeit upside down. 

“I am here, naked and completely at your mercy, in front of this roaring fire that you insisted on having, and you’re talking about the snow.”

In the firelight, Jaime seemed to glow and the sweat from their very spirited activities made the both of them glisten more than any snowflakes ever could. Brienne hummed thoughtfully in response and Jaime playfully growled and clambered above her nibbling at her earlobe. 

“Tell me your first snow wish then, wife, and I’ll do my best to grant it.” 

Brienne laughed breathily, turned her lips to his own ear and murmured her wish. Seven, how he burned for her. He laughed hotly, and pressed his mouth to the corner where her ear met her jaw, and down the pale column of her neck. 

“Jaime,” she gasped. She reached for him and he grasped both her wrists in the expanse of his left palm, pressing them above their heads. 

Jaime tutted her, muffled against the slick skin of her collar bone, “Gotta let the first snow do its magic, Brienne.” He sucked at the joint where her clavicle centered, abandoned the grip on her wrists to hold himself up as he dragged his tongue down Brienne’s impossibly long sternum. 

As he moved his way down her body, Brienne gasped, grasping at the sheets, “And your wish, Jaime?” 

Jaime shuddered with a smile as he licked, nipped, and kissed his way down to his destination, “We’ve got all Winter.” 

****  
“Momma, I want to go on your shoulders!”

“You can go on my shoulders, Jo!” 

“No, Daddy, Momma is taller!” 

Brienne held back a snort at Jaime’s disgruntled face, before tucking her hands underneath her youngest daughter’s arms and hoisting her with ease onto her shoulders. Jaime then turned to his older daughter, who was standing next to him, hands stuffed in her pockets. 

“What about you, Aeli? Do you wanna get on my shoulders? You’re taller than Jo, so it’ll be about even.”

Aelinor looked away sheepishly, weighing the pros and cons and coolness factors involved with being carried by her father. 

“Why are we even out here? It’s so cold.” 

He squatted slightly, his knees creaking in the cold, and leveled himself with Aeli’s eyes. “We’re here for the first snow.” 

“The first snow?” 

Brienne’s voice floated to them in the night, “Yes, when you catch the first snowflakes during the first snow of the Winter, you can make a wish on it, and it will come true.”

Aeli still looked skeptical, but she bit her lip and the blue of her eyes flickered in the evening light. 

“Snow!” Jo gasped and pointed towards the sky. 

Jaime offered his arms one last time to Aeli, who took them without hesitation at the sight of the snow. As he hoisted her up onto his shoulders, the first snowflakes began to reach them. 

“Do the wishes you make really come true?” Aeli said in a hushed voice.

“Sometimes.” 

Jaime’s grip on his daughter tightened slightly as he locked eyes with Brienne, love and contentment and warmth he never knew possible reflected back in celestial blue.


End file.
